Raya sniffed the contents. “Are you sure it’s safe?”
“It is safe.”
Raya tipped the bottle and swallowed a sip of the liquid. She coughed. “It’s strong, but—wow!”
Phoenix took it. “Mortals are paying thousands of dollars per sip for something like this. Let’s see how it holds up.” He drank. Notes of apricot, pipe tobacco, and rose petals filled his senses, sending his thoughts to the far past when the wine might have been bottled. “Bloody hell—this is sublime.” His gaze locked with Raya’s, and his next thought, irrationally, was to kiss her.
She looked away, but a light blush glowed from her cheeks.
Justinian took the bottle and drank. “Ah! The good old days.” He sat down. “Now tell me of your great threat.” For the first time—possibly ever—his eyes twinkled with something close to mirth.
“My dear Witchiepoo, here, got mixed up with a witch who decided it would be a good idea to capture all of the demons in Paris for his personal use.”
Justinian eyed Raya. “You have strange taste in friends.”
“He’s not my friend. We were working together in the forest of Fontainebleau. He and another witch needed a third to draw from a source of power they couldn’t handle on their own.”
The angel raised his eyebrows. “So? This is what witches do, is it not?”
“I didn’t know quite how much power they were talking about until I was in the thick of it, and it was too late to stop.”
Phoenix held his hand out for the bottle. “I went after the witch, but he overpowered me—in a dream, mind you.”
Justinian handed it to him. “Why did you go after him? That was foolish, even for you.” He glanced at Raya. “Were you jealous?”
Phoenix nearly spat his mouthful of vintage Madeira on the floor. “What—” he sputtered.
Justinian displayed an innocent countenance. “Just trying to understand. Go on.”
Raya picked up the thread of the story. “The witch—Nathan—turned Phoenix into a cat, promising he would find him and bind him as soon as he could. And that he would come after the other demons, too. That he knew where they were.”
Justinian looked at Phoenix. “You were all together?”
“We had a hangout, yes. Cosmo’s bar.”
“That’s a name I haven’t heard in—”
“A very long time,” finished Phoenix.
The angel rubbed his hands over his bald head. “It is lonely for us, sometimes.”
Phoenix and Raya looked at each other, then looked at Justinian again.
“This is an imbalance, Justinian. Surely you can see that. It’s like”—Phoenix paused as he searched for a proper metaphor—“the branches of government. Checks and balances. Witches, angels, demons. No one gets too powerful for their own good and puts the rest of us in jeopardy.”
“You want me to use the sword to take his power away?”
“You can stay here if you want to. Just lend me the sword.”
Justinian laughed, a deep belly laugh that sounded like it came from the bottom of a whisky barrel. “Lend you the sword?” He slapped his knee and doubled over.
Raya covered a smile.
Great. The angel would make a fool of him in front of Raya. “I promised I’d help you find God—”
Justinian sat up and wiped tears from his eyes. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to mock you. But surely you can see—” His chest shook as he suppressed another laugh.
“You know as well as I do a witch can’t just take power from another witch, but—fine.” Phoenix downed another swig. “Keep your flaming sword and leave your fellow supernatural beings to rot.”
